The chapter opens with the narrator's own inquiry into the doctrine of stasis. He compares his own body's reaction to the apparitions to the reactions of the founder and his own family. He concludes that the family's reactions are "almost too detached" from religion. He asks the narrator if he truly believes everything he has said. The narrator says that he cannot deny it, and that he will help the others find the stone. He wonders where the stone was found, and wonders if the society's purpose is to "better the world" . He decides to use the stone to extend his life, and he forbids anyone to use it to "draw attention from out-siders." The narrator explains that the world is made up of two sides, one that is distorted by the world around it and the other that is free from the distortion. He says that one must "correct this distortion" until the day when mankind attains a "level of spirituality" that renders "satisfactory stasis" no longer necessary. He hopes that he can give the narrator a good demonstration